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Course Announcement: Ants of the Southwest

You may be familiar with the California Academy of Science’s extremely popular Ant Course, which offers intensive taxonomic training in a once-a-year workshop held at an exotic locale. Ant Course is fantastic, with all its taxonomicky taxonomy and systematicky systematics. What if your anty interests, however, tend more to ecology and behavior?

The American Southwest is a hotspot for North American ant diversity, with over 350 species of ants known from Arizona, and a variety of ecologically interesting taxa – including leafcutters, harvester ants, army ants, and honeypot ants. In this 10-night course, participants will gain knowledge of the outstanding diversity, ecology, and behavior of southwestern ants. This course is designed with curriculum that complements rather than competes with the California Academy of Sciences Ant Course, which is also held at the SWRS once every three years and focuses heavily on the taxonomy and systematics of ants. Although this course also covers basic taxonomy and systematics, its major focus will be on the ecology and behavior of ants.

The course will include lectures, field trips, field experiments, and labs. Participants will obtain hands-on experience in experimental techniques with both field and captive ant colonies. The course will also cover current topics in ant behavior and ecology research. Students will leave the course with a small collection they create, and may have the opportunity to set up a captive laboratory colony.

As some of you may recall last August was the first of what is hoped to be many years of the Ants of the Southwest course at the SWRS. In spite of a low number of students it was a great success, so much so that the dates have been set for the 2013 class. In an attempt to avoid the conflict with beginning school semesters we had last year the dates have been moved in to mid July which should also correspond more closely with the beginning of the monsoon. The dates for the class in 2013 are July 17-26. Here is a link to the course announcement. http://research.amnh.org/swrs/ants-southwest
Anyone interested is encouraged to sign up.
Gordon